Mildly Controversial Thoughts for Further Exploration

dweekly

2008/03/13

The singularity is past. We’re already living in a collective consciousness with behaviors exceeding the capacity of any human or machine to understand, because that collective has intelligence exceeding our own by definition.

Death makes life valuable. In having a fixed lifetime, every moment living becomes precious, because every decision must be the absolute best. There’s no time to screw around with a short life. This is a good thing, so I embrace my mortality.

What you get done is more important than what you do. Leverage the work of others and become someone who causes useful things to get done. At the end of the day, nobody really cares how much work you put into something yourself. Results are it. (This is the theme of the Four Hour Workweek and of most texts on executive management.)

People want to belong to a system. Systems can be designed and programmed.

Education gives the best returns. Few things can improve GDP as having a well-educated populace. Compare wealth generation for immigrant cultures with a strong educational focus to those that do not for a clear demonstration.

Humans think in stories. Everything is a story, from business to love to travel. Learn to tell a good story and listen to others’ stories.

The devil is in the determinism. You can and do affect the future and the fate of the world. You are writing your own destiny; make it a good one.

Consistency is more important than correctness. People can deal with predictable systems even if they are flawed – bugs have workarounds when understood. But non-deterministic issues, even if minor, will drive people batshit crazy. Separately, this is why people like drinking Coke and eating McDonald’s even if they know it is terrible – they appreciate the consistency.